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MONTREAL - Montreal news anchor Mutsumi Takahashi was trying to achieve a healthier lifestyle, but became, in her words, fed up with the whole dieting thing. “Every week it was some new fad – one week carbs were good, then they were bad, then it was low fat, then no fat. Frankly, it was all enough to make you crazy.”

Takahashi wanted some plain, back to basics, common sense knowledge on just how to go about “feeling good and living a healthy life.”

Enter Catherine Sabiston, the director of McGill University’s Health Behaviour and Emotion Lab, who has spent a great deal of time studying people and why they don’t do the things they know they should be doing.

Takahashi and Sabiston have banded together to launch a community project called Lifetime, which airs every other Monday on Takahashi’s midday program on CFCF-12, aimed at helping viewers achieve a healthier lifestyle.

The health challenge, as they are calling it, will run through the spring and summer.

In a nutshell, Sabiston, 36, says we don’t succeed because we are following “guidelines that are preset by other people and which set you up for failure.”

“There are these goals that, when we fail to meet them, we give up, which in turn makes us feel like failures and sets in place all these negative emotions, and from there it’s just a downward spiral.”

Instead, people really do have to spend some time on self-reflection and begin the process in “very small steps,” which will lead to the bigger, healthier picture.

More often than not, Sabiston says, people are trying to lose weight and get into shape for external reasons, or for other people, and that really won’t work.

“The approach has to be relevant to one’s own life, to find the reason for themselves, and it’s a process – it can’t be done quickly or for the wrong reasons.”

One of the keys to exercise, she says, is to find something that you enjoy, an activity that once you’ve engaged in it, you’re proud of yourself, you feel good and are encouraged to do more of.

And make it about time for you.

“People tend to put their well-being last all the time,” she explained, “but instead should find ways to turn that thinking around and make it their time to do something good for themselves. It’s a positive thing.”

The first step in the Lifetime challenge is to sign a contract. That is a concrete way of “making that commitment to achieve wellness” followed by goal setting. And it’s so important the goals be based on the AIMS principle (achievable, important, measurable and specific).

“Too often people set goals that are unrealistic and when the confidence wanes, the wheels fall off.”

Sabiston has posted a contract on the CFCF website that she encourages people to sign and put up where they can see it everyday, to help reinforce their commitment to the health challenge.

And she stresses the importance of small steps.

“If you’re leading a sedentary life, the idea is not to throw you into an intense exercise regime,” she said.

“Rather, find ways to incorporate more movement in your daily life: Always take the stairs, park further away, stand up more often during the day, are easy places to begin.”

And if evenings are spent in front of the tube, then maybe make a plan to walk – even for 15 minutes.

“No one ever regrets going for a walk after they’ve done it,” she said with a laugh. “It will be a positive thing and you’ll feel better for having done it which, in turn, may get you going on another night.”

Each segment of Lifetime will offer strategies and tips covering all aspects of well-being, not just weight loss, since it’s often emotional and psychological barriers that prevent us from getting it right.

Viewers will be asked to participate in different challenges and will be encouraged to email Sabiston and her team.

“We’d like the feedback from the masses rather than just from specific research participants, so we can modify the plans and help even more people.”

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